edit:
Also forgot to mention, be sure to have your audio settings under System > Preferences > Hardware > Sound
for “Sound Playback” (not sound capture) set to PulseAudio Sound Server.

Side Note:
If you’re experiencing random lock ups and you’re not doing anything sound related.. multiple things can cause your desktop to freeze up.. such as stressing your network or having your firewall configured improperly, so it may not be pulseaudio at all.
edit 2:Important Update:
Some users have been complaining about a glitch in the software that dumps a message into their log files and causes random lock-ups.
If you experience random lock-ups or a message being dumped into certain log files, remove the tsched=0 term to enable timer-based scheduling, which makes the audio less CPU intensive;
the line should look like this afterwards:

Quote:

load-module module-hal-detect

However you may experience pop and stuttering audio glitches if you remove it. If in some rare case you do, put it back.
In other words, it’s safe to remove tsched=0; everything else in the tutorial stays.
run the command

Code:

$ pulseaudio -k

after you get done editing the file (/etc/pulse/default.pa) then test the audio. (to edit just run the first command of the tutorial)